caitlin gannon

Technicolor brain images don’t show the whole picture

Scientists are in a mad rush to locate specific emotional and mental states in the brain: schadenfreude, empathy, even anomie (well, almost). Articles are published every day about scientists “mapping new regions of the brain” and are often accompanied with now familiar images of brains lit up by MRI technology (and PhotoShop).

A recent article [...]

Meme overload

“Information overload” has been in our vocabulary for decades–we can all relate to the frustration of receiving 100+ emails a day and not having enough time to process all the information that comes at us. We joke about it.
Philosopher Daniel Dennett offers a disturbing new view on this problem: we are being overrun by memes [...]